


your sinking ship (is big enough for two)

by baliset



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, lots of incineration imagery in this one, rated T for swears and weed, two bad pitchers smoking weed in a van is something that can be so personal, we out here making everyone care about the dead Garages at knifepoint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27495232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baliset/pseuds/baliset
Summary: The first impression Derrick Krueger makes on the Garages is that he doesn’t make one at all.(or: jaylen burns, and two terrible pitchers walk into a van.)
Relationships: Mike Townsend & Jaylen Hotdogfingers, Mike Townsend/Derrick Krueger
Comments: 9
Kudos: 30





	your sinking ship (is big enough for two)

The first impression Derrick Krueger makes on the Garages is that he doesn’t make one at all. He doesn’t rise out of Jaylen’s ashes, he doesn’t jump out of the stands and charge the mound to pick up the ball - Jaylen dies, and Derrick just _is_. Everyone screaming and sobbing over a pile of ashes on the field, and Derrick appears in the dugout, quietly unobtrusive, turning his face away like he knows this isn’t for him to see. Like he’s embarrassed for walking in on a private moment, a death in a family he doesn’t belong to.

Mike notices, and he might be the only one who does, but even he doesn’t strictly register that Derrick is there until Jaylen’s wake is halfway over and starting to wind down. The gears of Mike’s brain are stuck on other things, like the way the umpire’s eyes turned white in that split second before Jaylen became a pillar of flame. Like how close Jaylen was to him when it happened, so close that the rush of air from the heat ruffled his hair and nearly knocked his ball cap off his head. He had to turn away from the fire, because of how bright it was in the eclipse-dark stadium, and he wonders if he’s a coward for not watching every second of his friend’s death.

Mike saw Derrick for the first time then, in that brief moment that he turned away from Jaylen’s burning body. He sees Derrick the second time at the wake, standing in the corner looking exceptionally lost, like he’s just wandered into the basement show space of Teddy’s house by accident. Someone’s thrown him a beer, at least, because Derrick is holding onto it for dear life in one hand, though it doesn’t look like he’s bothered to open it. His expression is that of a man trying desperately to melt into the wallpaper.

Mike walks away from the conversation between Bennett and Avila that he was only sort of paying attention to anyway, and murmurs apologies to the bodies he has to dodge on his way over to the corner of the room. It’s not too crowded on this side, he finds - either Derrick picked the least populated place to stand by design, or everyone is giving Derrick a wide berth.

Mike gets it, sort of. It feels weird to look at Derrick and remember that the only reason he’s here is because Jaylen is a pile of ashes sitting in an urn upstairs. Derrick looks nothing like Jaylen, of course - he’s tall in a way that’s mostly his legs, with big gray eyes and brown hair that curls around an unshaven face. But looking at him is the hollow pain of tonguing at the hole where a tooth used to be.

Derrick didn’t choose that, Mike knows for certain that he didn’t, and yet there’s still something in Derrick’s eyes that reads as an apology when they come face to face with each other in the corner of Teddy’s basement.

“Hi,” Mike says, and holds out his hand. “I’m Mike Townsend. I pitch for the Garages.”

“Derrick Krueger,” Derrick says, and shakes Mike’s hand once, briefly, then pulls his own hand back to cradle his beer bottle against his chest. “I, uh. I guess I do that too.” His mouth twists, and he looks like he’s thinking about saying something else, and then he does. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Thanks,” Mike says. He doesn’t know how to give condolences, or accept them, and he’s been stuck doing both all day. He suspects it’s not going to get easier any time soon.

They both stand there for a long moment, not saying anything at all, and Mike has just enough time to start wishing he had brought a beer of his own over to fidget with before Derrick speaks again.

“Do you want to, like…” Derrick gestures towards the stairs with his shoulder and a jerk of his head. “Get out of here?”

Mike looks over his shoulder at the crowded room, looks back at Derrick, and runs a hand over his face. “I really fucking do, yeah.”

  
  


***

So they end up in Derrick’s van, parked in a quiet, lightless hollow of the Big Garage. Derrick scrambles over the center console into the back, and Mike follows, unable to see anything for a second until he fumbles in his pocket for his phone and the flashlight flares to life between his fingers.

The back of the van is surprisingly large. Mike’s landed with his knee next to a beaten up cardboard box full of t-shirts, some with screen printed art he recognizes from local bands. He shines his light around and finds more boxes littering the space - some with clothes, at least one overflowing with CDs - along with a mattress, what looks like a camp stove, and a couple of instrument cases stacked in one corner. Mike quietly wonders if the van’s dimensions are the same on the inside as they are on the outside - not that a van with a slightly-too-big interior could really compare to the fact that a hellmouth swallowed Moab literally this afternoon.

“Do you live in here?” he asks, shining the flashlight towards Derrick.

“Mostly,” Derrick says. He pushes open the back doors, and no light floods in, but the air instantly becomes a little less thick. “Do you smoke?”

“What - like, weed?”

Derrick looks over his shoulder, raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike says, feeling a flush creep up the back of his neck. “Yeah, I smoke.”

“Cool,” Derrick says, and grins the kind of grin that lights up his entire face, almost embarrassingly sincere. Mike can’t remember the last time anyone smiled at him like that.

Derrick makes his way back over to Mike, moving more gracefully than he should rightfully be able to while crawling around in the back of a van. He’s still all knees and elbows, still too tall even for the too-big space, but he moves like he knows exactly where everything is. Mike puts his phone face down on the floor to keep the back of the van lit, and watches as Derrick pulls a pair of dented Altloids tins out from somewhere underneath the mattress and starts to roll a joint from the components inside of them. Derrick’s fingers are also more graceful than they should be - long, pale, his nails cut blunt and to the quick. He has a callus on the side of one thumb, but nowhere else. Mike wonders what instrument he plays.

“Do you have a light?” Derrick asks absently. He looks up, then turns his face away so quickly that Mike almost doesn’t see him cringe in regret. “Actually - you know what, never mind, let me just -”

The joint is thrust into Mike’s hands. Derrick shoves the two Altloids tins back into their hiding spot, and climbs over the center console into the front of the van again. The light of the phone flashlight doesn’t quite reach past the seats, but Mike can hear the click of the glove compartment opening, and Derrick rummaging around inside.

“I don’t really carry a lighter,” Mike says, looking at the joint in between his fingers more than he’s looking at Derrick. He really doesn’t - he only smokes socially, when someone else is offering. And not many people tend to offer.

“It’s fine, I’ve probably got one in here,” Derrick says. There’s a soft click from the front seat, and the orange glow of something more natural than an LED light, and, “That’ll work!”

The lighter sails over the seat back and lands soundlessly on the mattress. Derrick follows it, scooting legs-first over the console. He flops onto the mattress and takes the lighter in his hand, and holds it out to Mike.

Mike takes the lighter. It’s a hot pink one that Derrick probably bought at the gas station, and the flame is a little weak, but it holds long enough to light the joint. Mike tries not to look too hard at the flame, and tries not to let the gears in his mind get stuck on it, to churn up the image of Jaylen burning, like the fire had been waiting inside her all along to burst her body at the seams. He drops the lighter as soon as he’s done with it.

Derrick picks up the lighter and rolls it between his fingers, his eyes fixed down towards it. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Mike asks. It’s not the conversation opener he was hoping for, and he takes a hit off the joint that he only realizes might be too much once the smoke is already inside of him. He hands the joint to Derrick, valiantly trying not to cough, a part of him glad for the excuse to stop talking.

“I dunno. For everything.” Derrick gestures vaguely, joint held between two long fingers. “For the Book. And your friend. And for showing up when she…”

He shuts himself up by taking a hit. Mike finally lets the smoke seep out of his own mouth in a long stream, watching it disappear into the shadows where his phone’s flashlight can’t reach. _Jaylen’s dead_ , his brain reminds him helpfully, as though he had no idea what Derrick could possibly mean.

“That’s not your fault,” Mike says aloud.

Derrick makes a face at him, purses his lips, and blows out a perfect ring of smoke.

“I know,” he says. “I could’ve left, though. I mean, probably nothing was stopping me. The gods called me up to the stadium because I was supposed to replace Jaylen, right, but I didn’t _need_ to be there until it was time to play, so I could’ve gotten up and left.”

“But you didn’t,” Mike says.

“But I didn’t,” Derrick agrees, passing the joint back over.

“Why?”

“So - okay, this is going to sound insane, I promise -”

“I mean,” Mike cuts in, “you’ve seen the day I’ve had.”

Derrick cracks a half-moon version of his grin from before. Mike takes another hit off the joint, with a small sense of accomplishment.

“Okay, I - I didn’t want to, like...” Derrick begins, then pauses, grimacing. “Make a scene?”

The laugh that comes out of Mike startles him. It’s visceral, from somewhere deep in his stomach, and he coughs as it brings up the smoke with it. He clasps a hand over his mouth, but he’s still laughing, his shoulders shaking from the force of it coursing through him.

“I’m serious,” Derrick says, a little despondently.

“I know,” Mike wheezes. He’s tearing up behind his glasses, and wipes his eyes with his sleeves, very nearly touching the lit joint to his face before Derrick snatches it out of his hand at the last moment.

“I - listen, it felt rude,” Derrick says. “I told you it was insane -”

“It’s _not_ ,” Mike insists. His stomach hurts. “It’s - fucking, it’s exactly something _I_ would do.” He wipes his eyes again, and tries to get a hold on himself, but he still can’t help but let out weak little barks of laughter every time the image of Derrick sitting in the dugout reappears in his mind. “Not leaving a murder scene because it’s awkward. Christ.”

Derrick finally laughs, and the sound is like a dam breaking. He lies back against the mattress and puts an arm over his eyes, the ring pierced through his bottom lip quivering slightly with every laugh that comes out of him. It sets Mike off again, and then they’re both in hysterics.

“Fuck,” Derrick says, eventually, sitting back up. The joint is still between his fingers, still lit somehow. He takes another hit of it and does the same thing he did before, blowing the smoke out in rings that dissipate almost as soon as they hit the air.

“How are you doing that?” Mike asks.

“The rings?” Derrick looks pleased to be asked, and shifts to lean his shoulders against the wall of the van. “It’s just a party trick. I’ve got good breath control, and I can move my tongue in a bunch of fucked up ways from band stuff, so.”

Mike feels another flush creeping up his face at the implications - until he realizes the _real_ implications, and his eyes go wide behind his glasses.

“Wait, you play brass?”

“I play sax,” Derrick says, a little proudly.

“Fuck _yeah_ ,” Mike says. It comes out more enthusiastic than he means it to, but that’s probably okay. “You play - what, like, ska?”

“I mean, I could if I wanted to. Probably.” Derrick shrugs. “But I’m in a prog band, the Moonlight Warriors. We do concept albums and shit.”

“Oh!” Mike says, not sure what else he can say, because that sounds like _the coolest shit in the world_. “Oh, right on. That’s awesome.”

“You play guitar, right?” Derrick asks.

It’s a pretty standard question, but it still takes Mike off guard. He doesn’t really play with the Garages anymore - he wouldn’t say they disowned him so much as they conspicuously stopped inviting him to practice, so he mostly goes to open mics and house shows by himself. He still knows plenty of people in the scene, but he gets recognized less when he’s not a Garage. Sometimes he thinks that’s for the best, considering his performance on the blaseball field, and how many fans he’s heard get angry about it in a visceral way.

“I do, yeah,” Mike says, finally.

“I heard you were doing solo stuff now,” Derrick says. “Do you have it up online or anything?”

“Uh, no,” Mike says, feeling even more knocked off balance. He has a hard time, sometimes, working out if people are being genuinely nice to him or just polite. Here, he’s certain Derrick is being genuine, which is somehow worse and more overwhelming than the politeness.

“Does your band have CDs?” he asks to change the subject, glancing towards the box of CDs on the other side of the van.

“We do!” Derrick says cheerfully. “You want to hear one?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, surprised to find that he means it.

Just like that, Derrick is in motion again, still holding the joint even though they’ve both pretty much forgotten about it, sliding into the front seat of the van. There’s the metallic jingle of keys, then the engine rumbles to life, and Derrick reaches over to press some buttons on the stereo.

“This is my favorite one,” he says, as gain-heavy guitars come growling out of the speakers, interspersed with brass and - is that a string section?

“Holy shit,” Mike says, before the vocalist has even started singing.

“I know.” Derrick laughs. “Just wait, it gets better.”

Mike tips himself backwards into Derrick’s mattress and closes his eyes to listen better. He breathes in the sweet weed-smell of the van and feels the bass shake the walls around him, feels the music envelop him like a blanket. It’s not the kind of music the Garages make. It’s produced with a little more polish, and it has layers of instruments woven delicately together - violins wailing plaintively behind guitar licks, horns peeking out between gaps in the bass line.

He thinks he tells Derrick out loud how much he likes it. It’s hard to say. Sometime between the end of the first song and the start of the next one, he falls asleep.

***

The light pouring into the back of the van from the Big Garage would be the thing to wake Mike up, if the sound of someone pounding on the side of Derrick’s van didn’t do it first. Mike opens his eyes and finds everything blurry, even though he can feel that he slept with his glasses on. He sits up and blinks until he recognizes the shock of pink hair hovering around the open van doors, then lies back down with a groan.

“ _What_ , Shaq,” he says, his voice a rasp in his throat.

“Time for practice,” Shaquille Torres informs him, and Mike can _hear_ the shit-eating grin on their face, even if they’re not looking at each other. “You and the new guy have a nice sleepover?”

“He has a name,” Mike says.

“News to me.”

“You could try asking him.”

“I could’ve, but you two left Teddy’s house before anybody got to talk to you.”

“Right,” Mike says, because he knows there’s no real point in arguing. “I’ll be ready in five, okay?”

“Sure,” Shaq says, in a voice that says he knows better. But he leaves anyway - and better yet, he shuts the van doors behind him, leaving Mike to wake up in the dark, where he can’t yet hear the other Garages bustling around outside.

There’s a noise from the front of the van. Mike contorts himself to look, already knowing what he’ll see, but wanting to see it anyway. Derrick is there in the passenger seat, blinking the wakefulness into his own eyes, his long body contorted to fit more comfortably in the small space. He catches Mike’s eye and yawns without covering his mouth.

“We really have to play today?” he asks. “That’s fucked up.”

“It’s kind of fucked up,” Mike agrees, rubbing a hand over his jaw. The thought is back in his mind - _Jaylen’s dead_ , like an intrusive mantra - even if he can’t believe the wake was only yesterday. It feels eons ago. Time doesn’t work the way it should on the immaterial plane, everyone knows that, but you’d think the blaseball gods would allow for an extra day of rest after an umpire burned someone to death.

“ _We_ don’t have to play, though,” he reminds Derrick. They’re not at the top of the rotation, so they’ll get the rest after all, even if it’s at everyone else’s expense. “Just practice, probably. Teddy likes everybody to be at practice.”

“And I guess I’m everybody, now,” Derrick says, stretching in his seat and kicking his legs out.

“You are everybody,” Mike agrees solemnly. He runs a hand through his hair, finds the curls untamable, and gives up. “Sorry I stole your mattress.”

“You can steal my mattress any time,” Derrick says, with a laugh. “Sorry my band put you to sleep.”

Mike chooses not to jump on that first one, and instead says, “They’re really good.”

“Thanks,” Derrick says. “I’m glad you think so.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a long moment, Mike rearranging his clothes to try and make them look slightly more presentable and not like the exact same t-shirt and jeans he wore last night. He wonders, while he does it, if this makes him and Derrick friends now. He’s never been good at making friends on the team - it’s hard for him to click with other blaseball players, because he always feels like he’s just pretending, like one day everyone is going to realize he’s so bad that he was never really supposed to be there at all. He never even clicked with Jaylen, who called him a friend anyway, because she called everyone a friend.

Maybe it’s different because Derrick is new. Or different because they’re both shitty pitchers (Mike peeked at Derrick’s star rating, between the elections and the wake), or different because everyone seems to have already decided to ignore Derrick the way they ignore Mike. Whatever it is, there’s an ease there.

“Do you think it’ll happen to anyone else?” Derrick asks, twisting his head to look out the window at the rest of the team getting ready for practice. The glass is tinted - he can see out, they can’t see in.

Mike sits up a little straighter. “What?”

“The thing that happened to Jaylen,” Derrick says. “Do you think it’ll happen again?”

Mike leans over the center console to watch the other Garages with Derrick. He can see in the way they’re milling around that they’re bone-tired, but everyone is still smiling at each other, still talking, still pretending everything’s normal. Tiptoeing around the hole that Jaylen left in the world. Letting Derrick fade into background noise, calling him “the new guy” and nothing else - Mike can see how that would make it easier. He can’t wrap his head around this kind of loss happening again, to another team. Or several teams, even. 

Would the gods let there be loss on that scale? Would they like that?

“I don’t know,” Mike says, honestly. It’s easier than saying something comforting that he doesn’t believe.

“I don’t know, either,” Derrick says. His face is still turned away like it was in the dugout the day before, unreadable in the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway riv derrick am i right
> 
> title is from "feed the horses" by thank you scientist, which is incidentally what i think the moonlight warriors sound like, and a very good band you should check out
> 
> you can find me on twitter @corpserevivers, and elsewhere in the crabitat discord, where i make people care about the null team every day of my life!


End file.
